Jim Rogers goes short 30 year bond

[doodle]

MT,

Here is a hypothetical question for you. What would you say to a family that has been living on a piece of land and fishing in a nearby lake for centuries when some capitalist land baron comes in and purchases the land and kicks them off of it. Of course these people don't have money to buy the land because they live a subsistence lifestyle, but they have tilled the soil and built a house there and live off of the bounty of nature. They also only wish to live a life free from harrassment by the government or any other wealth redistributing entity. They cannot understand why the land baron needs the land because he doesn't plan to live there, or farm the soil. He is just holding it because he worried about the safety of his government created fiat currency and wants to diversify into hard assets.

Would a libertarian side with the land baron who is relying on government force to remove these people from what he now views as his personal property?

[WildAboutHarry]

He argues that the perception of freedom under our current structure is more an illusion than a reality for the majority of people. 

"All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"

[moda0306]

I think doodle's hitting the right point that the recognition of private property is the use of force by government.

Is it more founded in reality than most forms of coercion?  Very well so.

Are there illegitimacies that make recognition of private property a form of social engineering, and not simply a recognition and defense of an absolute truth?  Absolutely.

When I jump over a fence onto land that's been on this earth since before there were even people or governments, and Ollie Owner either shoots me or calls the cops to come arrest me, those are also uses of force and coercion.

Any system that's based on chopping up property that was never anybody's into lots for a certain people and not for others is, on its face, coercion.

When most libertarians say they want to "live free," I really don't blame them for having that position, but would remind them that their net worth is still very largely dependent on the government recognizing their "private property." Because they paid someone else for this, they might see it as completely legitimate that it's theirs, which is what gives us our natural view of property today (we paid for it... it's ours).

[MediumTex]

MT,

Here is a hypothetical question for you. What would you say to a family that has been living on a piece of land and fishing in a nearby lake for centuries when some capitalist land baron comes in and purchases the land and kicks them off of it. Of course these people don't have money to buy the land because they live a subsistence lifestyle, but they have tilled the soil and built a house there and live off of the bounty of nature. They also only wish to live a life free from harrassment by the government or any other wealth redistributing entity. They cannot understand why the land baron needs the land because he doesn't plan to live there, or farm the soil. He is just holding it because he worried about the safety of his government created fiat currency and wants to diversify into hard assets.

Would a libertarian side with the land baron who is relying on government force to remove these people from what he now views as his personal property?

What you are describing is a land titling issue.

That issue arises no matter the form of government.

I don't really think that scenario argues for or against a more limited role for government in society.

Can you point to any form of government anywhere (libertarian or otherwise) that has provided a good outcome for indigenous people's claims to large expanses of tribal land or land rights?  I can't.

[MediumTex]

Can you point to any form of government anywhere (libertarian or otherwise) that has provided a good outcome for indigenous people's claims to large expanses of tribal land or land rights?  I can't.

http://www.clc.org.au/Ourland/land_righ ... s_act.html

But Clive, that is a form of justice that has arrived decades after the harm was done.

I suppose it's better late than never, but if I had my land taken from me it would be small consolation to be told that in 60 or 70 years I might get some of it back.

This sort of solution is also simply not available in most parts of the world where population density is increasing and thus even if the government wanted to give back the land it had taken, there are now a LOT more people to try to relocate to other areas, and obviously the politics of such an action would not be very appealing to the authorities.

[stone]

Medium Tex when you say "I don't really think that scenario argues for or against a more limited role for government in society"; it seems to me that it might argue for the need for government to (in an even handed way) trim back the wealth of everyone. The issue would never have arisen if the would-be-land-Baron wasn't desperately trying to find somewhere to park unneeded wealth. Lets say someone is a software engineer and does a very good job of it and employee stock options or whatever dump them with loads of wealth. The last thing the economy needs is for them to go about displacing farmers from land ownership but that is what our system leads to.
I'm struck by the fact that in the UK we have medical science funded by two major funding streams. One is taxation. The other is by a large foundation that only ever received one donation decades ago. That foundation has enough capital growth both to fund science and to grow larger so as to fund even more in the future. I like science so for me that seems great BUT isn't that foundation plundering people at large in order to support science just as much as the taxation is? That foundation is only a tiny part of the whole economy. It just illustrates how property rights mean plundering rights.

[doodle]

What you are describing is a land titling issue.

That issue arises no matter the form of government.

I don't really think that scenario argues for or against a more limited role for government in society.

Can you point to any form of government anywhere (libertarian or otherwise) that has provided a good outcome for indigenous people's claims to large expanses of tribal land or land rights?  I can't.

MT,

I think I am making the argument that wealth redistribution enforced by government seems to be at the core of the American libertarian philosophy. In the case the American Indians, their way of life was decimated by forced land distribution by a government that claimed to uphold the principles of "liberty, freedom, and justice". It is as if our entire system sprang from the very government plundering that today it claims to abhor.

I also think that we are trying to discuss and solve issues while remaining within the libertarian "box". I say it might be necessary to bust the box open to get at real solutions.

Below is the libertarian party platform:

"As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives, and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others. We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized. Consequently, we defend each person's right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power."– from the Preamble to the Libertarian Party Platform

no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others

As long as you play according to the Libertarian rule book that is enforced by a government. It seems like the values of the American Indians were sacrificed for the benefit of others.

we defend each person's right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.

If libertarians seem to defend each person's right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest without interference from authoritarian power then why do the rights of the selfish land Baron to hedge his government fiat currency outweigh the rights of the people who are engaging in the peaceful and honest work of farming a piece of land as they have for centuries?

The de facto truth is that libertarianism forces everyone to participate in the system that the libertarians create. A person has freedom as long as their idea of freedom conforms to the rulebook that libertarians set up. This sounds like a big hoax to me.

[moda0306]

I respect their will for freedom and respect for individuals, but when you start asking questions about the legitimacy of private property one starts to realize that "liberty" and "freedom" have fuzzy meanings.  Do I have the freedom to go wherever I please since I view private property to be fundamentally flawed?

This doesn't even imply that the land is the government's... simply, maybe, that in a truly "free" society, government doesn't have the right to deed out land, but simply protect people themselves and their tangible personal property (though even personal property is made up of natural resources from the earth... I'll let it fly though).

That would probably be a pretty ugly society due to the tragedy of commons and complete disorganization it would instill, I'll admit.

So the next step would be for the government to deed out land in segments to help facilitate a society and create some economic certainty and some reasonable care for the land and accountability.

To me, that step is much more a step of "organized, necessary coercion" than "essential liberty."

[Lone Wolf]

I think I am making the argument that wealth redistribution enforced by government seems to be at the core of the American libertarian philosophy.

I can't make any sense of what you are trying to say here.

As long as you play according to the Libertarian rule book that is enforced by a government. It seems like the values of the American Indians were sacrificed for the benefit of others.

Are you seriously trying to blame the mistreatment of Native Americans on libertarianism?  Do you realize that this makes no sense whatsoever?

If libertarians seem to defend each person's right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest without interference from authoritarian power then why do the rights of the selfish land Baron to hedge his government fiat currency outweigh the rights of the people who are engaging in the peaceful and honest work of farming a piece of land as they have for centuries?

In your hypothetical, did the land "Baron" purchase this property from the owners of this land or take it by force?  One type of transaction is voluntary and the other is involuntary.  Are you actually confused on this point?

Are... are you able to express these ideas more clearly, perhaps in some way relating them to what actual libertarians believe?  (Preferably without attempting to blame the Libertarian Party for things that happened centuries before its founding.)

You seem to have a tendency to sort of "quantum tunnel" from one line of discussion to something entirely unrelated, without preamble or explanation.  Suffice to say that this makes discussions more than a bit challenging.

That is another false characterization of libertarianism. "Isolationism" and "isolated individualism" are common terms used to dismiss libertarianism, but they couldn't be farther from the truth. Libertarianism leaves people free to associate with each other, and the greatest libertarian thinkers (including people like Ludwig von Mises) constantly pointed out how human association, trade, and economic interdependence are critical aspects of a healthy economy and society. I have never encountered a single libertarian who advocated that people isolate themselves from one another, because literally everyone agrees that it would obviously revert us back to a hunter-gatherer existence.

Nicely put.  It is because we are such social, interconnected creatures that we want transactions to be voluntary and mutually beneficial.  In any such transaction, by definition both sides believe they came away better off.

Consider a person from another part of the world that looks and thinks differently from you.  In a world of coerced, one-sided transactions, that person might look like an enemy.  In a world of mutually-beneficial, voluntary transactions, that person is the ideal trading partner for the very reason that you have such different needs and desires.

[doodle]

Lone Wolf,

I am simply making the point that American libertarianism is based on government coercion to impose its version of "freedom" on society.

If you ask an American Indian to define what freedom looks like, his definition might be very different from yours.

This concept of individual property rights is only one manner in which humans have chosen to organize themselves through millennia. It could be argued that mankind in fact has spent the majority of its time living in communal social organizations with a very loose sense of private property rights.  You seem to operate from a perspective that the libertarian system is somehow the only reasonable way to organize human society. I would say that history doesn't show this to be true.

Now despite my rant above I actually do loosely believe in private property rights, but more along the lines of a libertarian socialist. Here is their concept of property rights as taken from Wikipedia:

Libertarian Socialism generally accepts property rights, but with a short abandonment period. In other words, a person must make (more or less) continuous use of the item or else lose ownership rights. This is usually referred to as "possession property" or "usufruct". Thus, in this usufruct system, absentee ownership is illegitimate and workers own the machines or other equipment that they work with.

I would also argue that advocating a true libertarian system would be radical a departure from our present system. It would be something that I don't think most right wingers would support. A true libertarian system would not look like our present system with just a little less government interference and lower taxation.

One of the first things that in my mind would have to change would be the abolishment of the corporation as an entity which provides legal immunity to the individuals that run it. In a libertarian system individuals could not hide their personal assets and criminal liability behind a government created corporate forcefield.

 

[moda0306]

doodle,

Pretty well put. American libertarianism has at its core a belief in government-backed private property.  This is such a central core of their ideology and they rarely question it, and often build vast amounts of arguments on top of it assuming it as a God-given right.  I think it's an extremely important part of a responsible society, but it's a social, government-backed construct based on a mix of basic truths (what you build with your hands should be yours) and social engineering preferences (allow people to take ownership of land they are willing to move to).

The fact that libertarians wouldn't have supported the stealing of land from Indians may be nice to consider, but the point is that the land WAS stolen, VAST amounts of value was built on it and around the stability that the ownership of the land provided, and the "leftovers" given back hundreds of years later aren't the solution some try to give it credit for.

Do I believe in giving the land all back or completely ignoring current property rights?  Of course not.  But if one of the pillars of libertarianism (private property) is both inherantly flawed and a government-construct (deeding land), then it's already on very loose footing... especially as it tries to dismantle almost every form of government function that doesn't fall into the realm of private property.

[MediumTex]

I think it is tempting to discuss libertarianism in terms of what the world would look like under a pure libertarian arrangement.

This is, IMHO, misguided, though, because such an arrangement will never happen, just like pure democracy very rarely happens. 

What we are left with are systems that have many different ideological influences built into them.  What I am saying, in general, is that the government should have a smaller scope and leave a smaller footprint on society, so that whatever ideological influences happen to be in control will have limited opportunities to do mischief, since we know that all governments tend to drift toward ever greater levels of inefficiency and in most cases tyranny creeps in at some point as well.

[moda0306]

MT,

That, I can agree with. 

One problem is, though, that the people somehow in charge of driving our congress today believe in private property, free enterprise and little else.

They want to limit the scope of government, which is fine, but they want to do it with American libertarianism in ultra-high regard and little respect for an effort of social safety nets or redistribution.

I don't think we can have an honest debate about the role of government and what "coercion" actually is without acknowledging the inherant flaws of private property recognition as a distributive and quasi-coercive force.  Not that any of us are talking about dismantling it as a necessary part of society, but even in a debate about "which way do we go" with government, it needs to be understood, and I fear seldom is.

[Lone Wolf]

Now despite my rant above I actually do loosely believe in private property rights, but more along the lines of a libertarian socialist.

But if one of the pillars of libertarianism (private property) is both inherantly flawed and a government-construct (deeding land), then it's already on very loose footing...

Oh.  Uh, I see.  If we don't see eye-to-eye on whether property rights are "inherently flawed", that explains a lot.

I think that the Native Americans would have fared much better if they had encountered boatfuls of Europeans with a strong, fundamental belief in natural property rights that you so casually discard.  Instead they got the murderous plunderer Cortes.

If this is where you're both coming from, I think we're on opposite sides of a gulf that is simply too wide to cross.

One problem is, though, that the people somehow in charge of driving our congress today believe in private property, free enterprise and little else.

You can't possibly be describing the Congress of the present-day United States.  You and I have truly woken up on opposite sides of the looking glass.  Care to switch sides?

[MediumTex]

One problem is, though, that the people somehow in charge of driving our congress today believe in private property, free enterprise and little else.

You can't possibly be describing the Congress of the present-day United States.  You and I have truly woken up on opposite sides of the looking glass.  Care to switch sides?

I think moda may be looking at some leaves or maybe a branch, while you are looking at the forest (which would be consistent with a reversd looking glass).

It's sort of like saying that Reagan was an anti-government figure, and yet the size and scope of government under his administration increased significantly.  It's a difficult thing to reconcile.

I would say that almost ANY person elected to office today is basically a statist--i.e., they want to use the government to create the kind of world they think would be best (and this normally includes an expansion of some aspect of the state's scope and power).  There are very few Ron Paul-type figures in any political system.

[moda0306]

LW,

I was referring to the freshmen tea partiers that are insisting we are in a fiscal crisis that somehow is completely unaided by a tax hike.  They seem to have the rest of congress, the senate and white house by the short and curlies.

I would say that private property, as seen by libertarians, is flawed... maybe "fundamentally" was too strong a term.  Is it flawed in the sense that it should be abandoned?  Not in the least... but it's probably flawed in that it should be viewed in the same context, to some degree, as other government-aided activities.  Private property recognition, in part, is a social/governmental construct.  Even if Indians hadn't been on the land of the U.S.  I think you're trying to create chasms in thinking that just don't exist.  I really didn't even want this to be about Indians, but moreso about doling out of land in general... to show that it was initially arbitrary and unfair, and since our economy is literally built on top of it, has to be viewed in the propert context... or else we risk a massive abandonment of the middle class for the sake of some misunderstood right to something that wasn't anyone's to begin with.

I know this is going to be hard for Ayn Randian libertarians to admit, because their entire premise is based on government-recognized private property... and if that's flawed in many ways or holds within it flawed assumptions, their whole concept of what "freedom" and "liberty" probably have some large flaws as well, at least the way said libertarian will see it.

Notice, this isn't a blank check for government to do what it wants... but simply a recognition of coercion where it may not seem like it exists.

[moda0306]

I mean... try to have a conversation with Ron Paul (whom I respect)... and as you get to all the things that you hate the government doing, take it to the next level and say, "Yeah, and the government-subsidized construct of recognizing and defending much of the land and natural resource private property of individuals has to stop... the government has no authority to recognize ownership of something that wasn't ever anyone's to begin with.  The government doesn't own the land nor does it have the authority to divide it out amongst a population or recognize somebody's ownership of it when they come to them claiming it's theirs."

Watch Ron Paul's face as he sees his libertarian world falling apart... what's he going to argue against that?  God wants government to recognize land and natural resource ownership?  That they HAVE to be owned by individuals so they CAN'T be owned by government?  That this form of social engineering is the one and only appropriate form of it?

So I guess it's not private property that's fundamentally flawed, but libertarianism that is... because if you carry it to its logical conclusion you have to vastly amend one of its greatest pillars.  This amendment would change the entire world that a libertarian would see themselves living in into one of anarchy and an implied quasi-socialism ("this land was made for you and me") that they thought they had protected themselves against by adhering to thier rigid philosophy.

[doodle]

Boy, how this thread has taken a turn from the original post! It is a good discussion however, and I think Moda is doing a fine job digging into the complications surrounding one of the core tenets of libertarianism.

I think the fundamental, inescapable truth (that is present in all models of social and economic organization) is that all social systems are ultimately based upon some particular belief about mans relationship to the physical earth as well as to other men. Notice, how I used the word "belief". This is quite different from "fact". Libertarianism is a "belief" system that rests on certain assumptions regarding how man behaves and responds to his natural environment and to other men. Whether this system is the be all, end all of human civilization is doubtful. Maybe libertarianism is just another step forward on the path to a more enlightened social philosophy. Man is a very adaptable creature and it is hard to say that his nature is immutable. We all should remain very flexible in our thinking and attempt to adapt the systems which govern society to lead to the greatest amount of happiness and well being. My main contention with libertarianism is that it lacks this flexibility. It is rigid like a religion, where questioning its central tenets becomes akin to heresy.

Sorry, to switch topics....but watching market action today makes me wonder if Jim Rogers is holding tight on his 30 year short, or whether he has bailed.

MT,

I hope you are enjoying those call option profits I inspired with my doomsday rants. Feel free to send me a royalty check anytime!

[doodle]

One question that I have:

How would a libertarian address a situation where a small group of "John Galt's", through hard work and by legal means, purchased all of the available land in the United States. Let's say that in this scenario 100 "John Galt's" owned 99.99 percent of the countries wealth and resources. Would this situation be positive for our country? If not, how would a libertarian address it?

[moda0306]

Libertarianism is a "belief" system that rests on certain assumptions regarding how man behaves and responds to his natural environment and to other men.

I think that's a great, succinct way to put it.

It's literally is extremely difficult to think of how to attach people to the great resources our earth has given us.  There is no perfect, natural connection between a man and a plot of land or a bunch of oil underneath many plots of land... nor is there a perfect, legitimate form of government that can reconcile the process... the best we can do is try to come up with the fairest system possible, even if, in some minds, that's no system at all.

I believe establishing and respecting private property laws are as much to prevent a tragedy of commons as to actually allocate fairly the resources of our earth or to represent some absolute reality.  Others (LW?) may see a more direct attachment, but if we're going to build a complete political philosophy on the purity of an assertion, then I think we'd need to be pretty sure of it and have examined it to its core.

doodle,

I think most libertarians think their philosophy won't lead to such a result, or they simply don't care if it does.... depending on which one you're talking to.

[Lone Wolf]

I mean... try to have a conversation with Ron Paul (whom I respect)... and as you get to all the things that you hate the government doing, take it to the next level and say,...
Watch Ron Paul's face as he sees his libertarian world falling apart... what's he going to argue against that?

Do you think this argument is so original that it's going to rock Ron Paul's world?  That this isn't something a libertarian hears every single time they're challenged by those who favor a large government?  Libertarians are so used to being mischaracterized, caricatured and called "anarchists" that it almost becomes something of a running joke.

Tortoise's explanation of minarchist vs. anarchist should hopefully clear this up for you.  But suffice to say that Ron Paul believing property rights are more fundamental than you might does not necessarily equate to a flaw in his thinking.

I think you're trying to create chasms in thinking that just don't exist.

I'm not "trying to create chasms in thinking" (and I carry none of the bad faith that this seems to imply, thankyouverymuch.)  I'm just pointing out what is (to me) a patently obvious difference in our views on how fundamental property rights are in a civil society.  That's what has this discussion going down this "libertarian vs. anarchist" rathole.

I can't see much point in belaboring this topic further.

[doodle]

BTW, if anyone has any misconceptions about who the property ultimately belongs to....try not paying your property taxes and see what happens to "your" land.

The irony is that the very government that has the power to give and uphold the property rights of individuals, also has the power to take them away.

Ownership is an illusion. I think we should maybe start to look at all property as "on loan". After all, in the end, you can't take it with you when you go.

With the exception of the soul (if you believe in that particular version of how things work) your physical body is only an amalgamation of nutrients to someone else's "property".

If you watch enough PBS "NOVA" episodes about the universe, the concept of anything terrestrial as "property rights"  seems so inconsequential and absurd.  ;D

[MediumTex]

Ownership is an illusion. I think we should maybe start to look at all property as "on loan". After all, in the end, you can't take it with you when you go.

With the exception of the soul (if you believe in that particular version of how things work) your physical body is only an amalgamation of nutrients to someone else's "property".

If you watch enough PBS "NOVA" episodes about the universe, the concept of anything terrestrial as "property rights"  seems so inconsequential and absurd.  ;D

It is, however, still necessary at any given moment in time to determine the nature of property rights.

Failing to do this through a civil process doesn't mean there won't be any property, it just means that property rights will be enforced exclusively through violence.

Obviously there are no absolute and eternal rights to anything.  We are always talking about bundles of rights that are agreed upon at specific points in time or over certain ranges of time.

[moda0306]

LW,

Sorry about my implication.  I guess I was saying that I think we can hash this out... not that you were deliberately being intellectually dishonest or incurious.  "Trying" should not have been a term I used.  It wasn't my intent, but we have a bit left on this methinks.

I'm not saying that libertarians are anarchists... on the contrary... I'm actually pointing out that the one area in which they are quite different from anarchists is their adherance to the importance of government-recognized private property.  I agree that private property recognition, defense and respect is extremely important, but more in the context of creating a reasonably fair, prosperous, and properly motivated society that takes care of this world than to represent some kind of absolute attachment between man & wealth.

My argument is that private property is a social/government construct, but one that's probably the most important for an organized society to result.  Does that mean it has to drive all of our thinking and anything that doesn't fit into the "private property box" need-not apply?  No, in my opinion.

Ron Paul thinks private property is as natural an extension of an individual as his hands and his wits, and that government is just a means of defense organized around that basic fact (am I mis-stating this position significantly?).  I disagree with that in some (maybe many) instances.  This doesn't mean we shouldn't attach "common" property to people anyway, but if it's done in the context of my view of private property, above (as a social construct), then it probably shouldn't happen to the extent where people are sick, starving or homeless and are going unaided while others are reaping the benefits of the "doling out" of property.

The whole libertarian vs anarchism thing just serves to highlight what true "liberty" might be to someone born without a dollar to their name vs someone born with 100 acres of hunting land in their name.  Maybe I'm misusing this distinction or not properly describing my motivations for bringing this difference up.  It was simply to show that definitions of liberty can actually be completely opposite for people.  For Person A it might be to put a fence around "his" land.  For Person B it might be to have access to that land to take some of the crops for food.

[moda0306]

MT,

You won't find me disagreeing with you much on the importance of private property... but it even seems in your description, that it's because anarchy will result without it... not some natural attachment between man and property... that private property is so important.  Also, because when "real" property and "intellectual" property are combined, so many wonderful things can result, is another reason to encourage a very solid system of private property recognition.

That seems to imply, to me, that it's much more of a social construct that aids us immensely in the proper allocation of resources based on peoples' needs and motivations than some natural attachment between man and earth. 

The problem is, when property is the ONLY social construct an ideology allows to run its thinking, it can tend to benefit one group much more than others... and continually moreso as that group gains more power.  This is where the social construct of private property can be combined with other less-important constructs to give us what is hopefully the best of all worlds.  Enough freedom and liberty and property control and opportunity and safety nets and externality consideration and regulation where most people see the game that's set up as being worth playing.